ST. LOUIS – It would have been easy for MBU women's basketball to phone it in on Tuesday after an epic and emotional week, but the Spartans showed up and continued to chart the course. MoBap put up an offensive thumping on Hannibal-LaGrange (HLG) in the first of its three game week to run its streak of victories to four in front of the first spring semester crowd at the Petty SRC.
Missouri Baptist (11-3, 7-1 in AMC) was asked to follow a come-from-behind overtime win against Stephens and a convincing victory against then first-place University of Health Sciences & Pharmacy with a home bout with Hannibal-LaGrange (2-13, 0-8 in AMC). MBU convincingly dispatched the Trojans 89-35 to move into a tie for first in the American Midwest Conference following the other results in the league Tuesday night.
MoBap got a wire-to-wire win, scoring the first nine points of the game.
Bryce Dowell continued her streak of being the spark off the pine. The Belleville, Ill., native scored eight in the first quarter and 17 on the night to lead the way offensively for the second straight game. MBU got the lead up to 25 by halftime and led by as much as 56 points.
All fifteen players saw time on the court for the Spartans, and the freshman duo of
Olivia Linneman and
Kacie Daigger came in and impressed late in the game. Daigger in particular ended up being the second-highest point getter, with a 5-for-5 shooting clip beyond the arc for 15 points in just 10 minutes of action.
MoBap shot 49.3 percent from the field, 40.9 percent from 3-point land, and capitalized on HLG mistakes with 38 points coming off turnovers. MBU also recorded the highest total of assists in a game this season (24) since its 100-point outburst against Lyon in November.
"That's a heck of a performance from us top to bottom," head coach Sam Pearson said. "We enjoy our depth. It makes for a really tough practice [because] we really compete, and that was able to boil over onto the court here today."
Other stat lines of note for MBU were
Alexis Allstun (10 points),
Kasey Rice (9 points, 5 rebounds), and
Deyana Dodd (8 points, 7 steals, 4 rebounds).
Missouri Baptist begins a four-game stretch of away games on Thursday, Jan. 12th, with the short trip to Harris-Stowe State at 5:30 pm.
